Is China Running the World's Biggest Marketing Test on You?

Growth Newsletter: https://levelingup.beehiiv.com/subscribe Need marketing help? Visit: https://www.singlegrain.com/ and https://npdigital.com/Want to recruit great marketers? Find them here: https://marketingschool.io/hire Neil and Eric react to the report that Chinese institutions turned 171 million public X posts into a million-account digital twin of the American electorate — and are testing political messages on it. They unpack the marketing angle behind cognitive-domain warfare, why the data asymmetry between open and closed internets matters, the Paul Graham chart showing LinkedIn users adding AI and deleting DEI from their profiles, and why following trends is usually the losing move. A sobering look at what happens when audience modeling gets weaponized. Key takeaways◾Audience modeling at nation-state scale is here — and it's a marketing system◾Open platforms hand their behavioral data to anyone, including adversaries◾Profile trends follow incentives: AI in, DEI out Chapters00:00 China's AI models of American voters02:04 Privacy and platform rules04:06 The LinkedIn graph: AI in, DEI out07:12 Think for yourself, don't chase trends

• 0:00Speaker 00

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• 0:35Speaker 00

  So, did you, did you see that, uh, so the CCP is Chinese institutions are building AI models of American voters and testing political messages on them? So this is interesting to me. So this is a marketing, I think there's a marketing angle from this for sure. So Fudon, the company Fudon, used 171 million X posts to create a multi, a million account voter pool. A government-linked team testing a campaign message on synthetic Pennsylvania owners, uh, users, okay, or voters. Uh, so it inferred the, the race, the ideology, all these things, right? And so what's happening right now, what this person, Melissa Chen, posted this, okay? So she's like, look, this is right out of Ender's Game, except the, the kids in school are Chinese state researchers.

• 1:20Speaker 00

  The simulations are real influence ops and the, the aliens are us. So what's interesting to me, Neil, is that the, in China, like if they're our adversary, they can pull from X, they can pull from all these open sources, right? They can't, we can't do that to them, because everything's closed off, right? So they can influence our politics, we can't actually do anything back to them on that. And so the argument with this is that if, if Chinese institutions are already building this, they, they have, we're a lot more vulnerable to that. And she's like, yeah, we cannot build a million agent model of the Chinese public. We cannot test messages on synthetic Shanghai's factory workers or Chengdu nationalists. We cannot A B test narratives about Taiwan. We live in a glass house, while they live in a fortress.

• 2:03Speaker 00

  Every American rant, every demographic signal, every cultural fracture is harvested, modeled, and weaponized. Meanwhile, their population remains opaque, unmodeled, and unreachable. Beijing now possesses a live, continuously updated war game of the American mind. We possess nothing comparable about theirs. A whole new level of unrestricted warfare has been unlocked. We are not ready for this, right? Now, aside from the, the whole doomerism around this, like I'm not here to talk about that. I just think it's, it's interesting, going back to what we talked about last time. There are no solutions to anything in life, there are only trade-offs. So this is, this is a big trade-off that we have, operating how we operate, and they have trade-offs in terms of how they operate too. But isn't that interesting?

• 2:39Speaker 01

  Yeah, but we're also getting more strict on how we operate just with privacy, like you saw the Facebook lawsuit, right? They owe 11-

• 2:46Speaker 00

  16 billion?

• 2:48Speaker 01

  They owe $11 billion upfront. The remainder of the money they owe if the other platforms don't conform, from my understanding, maybe I misread it. Uh, and it can get to 16 or 18 or somewhere over that billion dollars in total. But the US government is, is pretty much more strict rules for social media. And I believe we're going to start seeing more and more of this. Right now it's for the youth. Uh, I thought it was a huge win for the US population. Just me personally, this is just my opinion, I don't have any data on it. I, I never thought it was so healthy for what a lot of the youth are seeing on social media.

• 3:29Speaker 01

  And the way I like, uh, talking about this is when TikTok was owned by ByteDance, the US version, right?

• 3:40Speaker 01

  One of their guys was in front of, you know, our politicians in Congress here in the US. And they were asking what type of content they show on TikTok here, and like, what kind of content do you guys show on the same version in China? And they're like, all educational content, things that help you be better. And they were just like, so you show the US citizens stuff that rots their brain? And then you show people in China stuff that helps them be better people? And they're like, what the heck is this?

• 4:06Speaker 00

  It's different ideologies, you know?

• 4:10Speaker 01

  Not just different-

• 4:11Speaker 00

  I'm kidding, I'm kidding, it's what's implanted.

• 4:13Speaker 01

  It's what's allowed.

• 4:14Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 4:16Speaker 01

  Because showing them brain rot makes them more money than showing them educational content.

• 4:19Speaker 00

  Yep, yep. And by, by the way, this is the trade-off with us being a very capitalist society. So whatever, you look at the newspapers or you look at social, like social media, what is rewarded the most? Remember, whatever, when it bleeds, it leads typically. Meaning that if the story bleeds, it, like the topic bleeds, it'll lead. So because we're on this topic, something similar here, so Paul Graham tweeted this, so Paul Graham said he showed this graph, so LinkedIn users have been editing their work histories to add AI and remove D E I, okay? So look at this, and you can see AI is being added to every, a lot, a lot more people's titles. Work from home is starting to trend downwards, okay? D E I had a sharp drop over here, maybe it like went up a little bit, but it, it's so interesting to me that-

• 5:03Speaker 01

  What's the red chart?

• 5:04Speaker 00

  The red chart is net share of edits, net share of edits, oh, descriptions. So titles up here, and then these are descriptions on the bottom.

• 5:12Speaker 01

  Got it.

• 5:13Speaker 00

  So you want to describe what you're seeing on the, the chart?

• 5:15Speaker 01

  Yeah, so it's, uh, job titles, and the top chart is of people are the, changing their job title. The bottom chart is people that are taking the job description, from my understanding.

• 5:25Speaker 00

  Yep.

• 5:26Speaker 01

  And the chart is broken into three parts. The first one is how many people are putting AI in their job title, it's climbing up into the right. On the bottom, how many people are putting AI in their job description is climbing up into the right. The middle is, what was the middle again?

• 5:40Speaker 00

  Work from home.

• 5:40Speaker 01

  Work from home. In the title, it is-

• 5:45Speaker 00

  Slight, down slightly.

• 5:46Speaker 01

  It's, it's roughly flat, right? When you look at the line in the middle, it's almost flat. In the description, though, you're seeing it go down, um, which means I'm guessing that more people will have to come to office. The right side is D E I, way less people are putting it in their title. They're still kind of including it in the description, but it is down substantially.

• 6:07Speaker 00

  Yep. So the reason I'm even showing this right now is because

• 6:12Speaker 00

  it's never been more powerful to think for yourself. Instead of just following the trend, like I get it, AI is a trend, I love talking about it, don't get me wrong. But you don't see me, like, I don't even think I have AI in my description or my title in my LinkedIn. Definitely, I never had like anything around work from home or, or D E I, right? The only reason I'm saying this right now, like if you truly believe in that stuff, great. But what I noticed during 2020 is like more and more people started adding D E I, because it was the trend, right? The trend de jour, right? Work from home is the trend de jour, right? And that's also when the, the pendulum had swung more towards employees, right? It always swings back and forth, right? Employees and, and employers, right? Now, AI is clearly trending right now, people know they can get jobs from it, of course they're going to take advantage of that, right?

• 6:53Speaker 00

  But what I would just say to this is it's more beneficial for you to think for yourself, because the vast majority of people, 99% of people won't think for themselves, right? And I will say this, right? Maybe I'll get canceled for this, but like, okay, you have the D E I thing there, like, do you, like, when I ask, when I have asked people just during the interview, like, what does that mean to you? They couldn't really explain it, right? Sometimes I'll even ask, so what is the, you know, the, the, the pronouns, can you explain what they mean, right? Because sometimes I'm like, I don't even know what they mean, right? But like, I can't, if I can't get a straight answer, and I can't get a strong point of view, it actually means that they were just following the trend. And the, the Overton window has switched, that like has, has shifted where it's, it's more okay to say this. So I'll say it, Neil doesn't have to say anything here, but I will say it openly, right?

• 7:38Speaker 00

  It's, it's more powerful if you think for yourself, again, versus just following trends. And this, this tweet got like over a million views on it, so. Frictionless Growth Marketing, hosted by Sonya Thompson, is brought to you by the HubSpot Podcast Network, the audio destination for business professionals. Frictionless Growth Marketing, hosted by Sonya Thompson, shows how modern brands grow by removing the friction in their marketing and customer experience that pushes customers away every single day, often without leaders even realizing it. Each episode delivers practical insights, real brand examples, and conversations with marketing leaders, showing brands how to win with the new rules of growth, identity-driven marketing, cultural relevance, and frictionless customer experiences. Listen to Frictionless Growth Marketing wherever you get your podcasts. That's my thought.

• 8:21Speaker 00

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• 8:38Speaker 01

  I think just in general in life and in marketing, specifically, Eric and I have been marketing for, call it 20 years. Typically, if you're following trends in marketing, you're not going to do as well compared to if you think for yourself. Following trends in marketing usually means you're going after very saturated channels that are expensive. It doesn't mean you should ignore the trends, you should just pick and choose wisely on what works for you. I'll talk about TikTok. I was at a conference in Laguna Beach, uh, earlier today, and that was a whole cool experience, but I quickly realized I am not a fan of the ocean.

• 9:20Speaker 00

  Why?

• 9:21Speaker 01

  They gave me a hotel room right on the water, which was really nice of them. Like, right on the water, nothing obstructing me, you can hear the ocean, the sound. And I was like, when I'm like, man, what is all this humidity? And I forgot how humid it gets. The second is, you keep hearing the ocean, and I'm like, man, I just want to go to sleep.

• 9:40Speaker 00

  That's white noise.

• 9:41Speaker 01

  Yeah, and the third is, I didn't care for, so I, within five minutes of getting into the room, and I got there in the afternoon. I closed my, uh, blackout, so I didn't have to look at the ocean.

• 9:53Speaker 00

  Wow.

• 9:54Speaker 01

  I, I feel like

• 9:57Speaker 01

  when I see a, a ocean environment, I feel like it's time for me to retire and just, you know, hang up my spurs and just be done with it.

• 10:05Speaker 00

  So you weren't with family, I thought you were with family.

• 10:08Speaker 01

  In Laguna?

• 10:08Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 10:09Speaker 01

  No, I was there speaking at a conference at the hotel.

• 10:11Speaker 00

  So when you called yesterday, I thought you were with, with family, that's why.

• 10:14Speaker 01

  No.

• 10:14Speaker 00

  Yeah, yeah, okay. But what, what Neil's point here is that you know what you like and you stick with it.

• 10:20Speaker 01

  Yes, but going back to the marketing example of this, I was getting carried away here or sidetracked. I was talking to the audience about TikTok, and a lot of people believe TikTok doesn't have their audience. I agree, TikTok is not right for all businesses, even though the trend is TikTok's booming, you got to be on it, leverage it. If you're not, you're missing out on a lot of revenue. You and I would agree that a lot of our ideal customer is not on TikTok. Assuming you agree with that statement, right? It is what it is. There's other businesses where the ideal customer is, just because the trend is to leverage TikTok, it doesn't mean Eric and I do, because that's not where our ideal customer typically lies, but we pay attention.

• 11:02Speaker 01

  And we pay attention to things like Google and a few other platforms have deals with TikTok for their data. So even if your ideal customer is not on there, our ideal customers for sure are on Google. So we will go and post content on TikTok, because it feeds Google's algorithm, which helps with attracting our ideal customer, even though they may not be on TikTok, but posting on TikTok helps us get more visibility on Google, which is where our ideal customers do, uh, live.

• 11:32Speaker 00

  So here's the last thing I'll say about this, right? So it's not about D E I or pronouns or remote work or AI. Ultimately, if you believe in something, it's easier to just believe in something that you genuinely believe in versus just following the fads, right? So I'm not saying, you know, remote work is bad, or D E I is bad, or pronouns are bad. But when you get pressed on it and you don't have a good response and you don't have a point of view on it, it means you don't genuinely believe in it. And so then why should I believe in you to join my company when you're not firm on your beliefs and you don't stand for something? Because if you don't stand for anything, if you stand for anything, you stand for nothing, right? If you stand for everything.

• 12:09Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 12:09Speaker 00

  So.

• 12:10Speaker 01

  Yeah, I'm with you.

• 12:10Speaker 00

  That, that, that, that's my point there, so, um, and by the way, by the way, I'll, I'll say one more thing there. Like, if you're susceptible to all of these trends and you don't have a point of view on it, that means you're susceptible to everything in your life, and that means that you're just going to let trends carry you, and that's not a way to live, right? So we hope you enjoyed that one. If you want more case studies like this, let us know and we'll see you tomorrow.